The Violator: How Chris Lighty Revolutionized Music Superstardom

Chris Lighty with client P. Diddy

On August 30, 2012, the hip-hop industry lost one of its brightest stars. Darryl Steven “Chris” Lighty was a powerhouse manager whose grit and determination took him from project housing in the Bronx to boardrooms where he made deals that turned ordinary artists into superstars. In a career spanning more than two decades, Chris negotiated some of the biggest artist endorsements in music history, saved the illustrious Def Jam record label from the brink of collapse, and radically transformed hip-hop while befriending many of the genre’s most significant figures. News of the 44-year-old’s suicide shocked the music world, and nearly the entire hip-hop industry mourned their tremendous loss. This is the story of Chris Lighty’s remarkable life.

Chris Lighty was born on May 8th, 1968 to a single mother of six and raised in the Bronx River Projects.¹ The eldest of the bunch, Chris would help his mother care for his siblings while she worked multiple jobs to provide the best education for her children. As a result, Chris and his siblings attended predominantly white schools outside of their neighborhood. The Bronx in the 1970s was an unpredictable and dangerous place. School provided a temporary reprieve for the Lighty kids, who needed all their street smarts to protect themselves and their belongings. At school, Chris met his best friend Darryl Thompson, and they formed an inseparable bond over their shared appreciation of the latest trends in clothing. Their non-stop search for the freshest threads led the two into hip-hop culture, which was just emerging in the parks around Chris’ home by local DJs, and they instantly fell in love.²

By the time Chris reached adolescence, conditions at home had deteriorated. An abusive stepfather and the constant threat of violence in his neighborhood led Chris to escape through music. Across the city, but especially in the Bronx, DJs were hooking up turntables to plugs on lampposts and spinning records for public gatherings they called “park jams”. Chris’ siblings fondly remember their brother throwing makeshift dance parties with his boombox, emulating the park jams they watched from their apartment window. Those spinning turntables in the parks gave birth to hip-hop culture, and the Lighty family had a front-row seat to its earliest development.²

Hip-hop performance during Chris’ youth was structured differently than it is today. In the early days, MCs would play sidekick to DJs, who controlled the crowd via their turntables and were therefore the source of many of the genre’s earliest innovations. One of hip-hop’s founding fathers and a pioneer of the park jam, DJ Kool Herc, revolutionized the budding genre through experimentation in the parks around Chris’ home. After realizing that the dancers would go crazy during the “breaks” in his records, Kool Herc began brainstorming ways to extend the 10–15 second parts as long as possible. His first iteration, the “merry-go-round”, involved using several turntables to queue up and switch between multiple breaks in different songs. Eventually, Herc got the idea to put the same record on two turntables and queue the same break up back to back, creating a non-stop loop. Thus, with his signature break from the Incredible Bongo Band’s “Apache”, one of the genre’s most legendary samples, Kool Herc turned 10 seconds of craziness into 10 minutes and provided the foundation for what a hip-hop track should sound like.²

As Chris matured, so did the genre he loved. By the 1980s, when Chris was a teenager, hip-hop had migrated from the parks to the clubs. Chris and his friends’ favorite spot was a downtown Manhattan club called Union Square, where one of the regular DJs was hip-hop legend DJ Red Alert. Red Alert’s career was inspired by the park jam DJs who he studied to form a basis for his own skills. Within a couple of years of touching the decks, DJ Red Alert was recognized across the city as one of the genre’s premier DJs. His popularity led to his own radio show on KISS FM at a time when very few stations would play any hip-hop at all. In 1986, Chris and his friends approached the DJ at Union Square, offering their muscle in return for expedited entrance into the club. While Red Alert didn’t need security, he did need help carrying his record crates across the city for his performances. Even though each teen would be responsible for moving two 30–50 pound crates, they jumped at the opportunity.²

Now a part of Red Alert’s entourage, Chris and his friends benefitted from all the same perks as the DJ. As Darryl Thompson recalls, “When you were a regular person paying to get in, you get on line. But with Red, pay who? Pay what? Nah. Stayin’ on line when? Never that.”² Eventually Red Alert dubbed the group the “Violators” after their constant discussions about how they would “violate” people who were causing problems for Red or their crew. The friends embraced the “Violator” moniker and the attitude that came along with it, something Chris took with him throughout his career in music.²

Around the same time, Red Alert’s nephew Mike Gee was begging the DJ to help him make a hip-hop record. Eventually, Red Alert conceded and set his nephew and friends up at a small, out of the way studio he found on Coney Island. There, the group began developing their sound and eventually released the record “Jimbrowski” under the name The Jungle Brothers. The track, which centered around unique slang for the male genitalia, was an instant hit. Eager to capitalize on their newfound popularity, The Jungle Brothers came back to Red Alert searching for a tour manager to book them shows and get them paid. Having seen something special in Chris, the DJ recommended Lighty for the job despite his lack of experience.³

By 1988, at the age of 20, Chris was officially the road manager for the The Jungle Brothers and began developing essential industry skills. Operating on a shoestring budget, the eight-person road team traveled together crammed in a compact Chevrolet Corsica. Chris was responsible for getting the team to the venue, making sure everyone was sober enough to perform and do their job, and secure compensation in an era when club promoters were notorious for taking advantage of young artists. Chris’ savvy professionalism was noticed and he was recommended to manage an up-and-coming Queens group billed as A Tribe Called Quest. The group, who were members of The Jungle Brothers’ “Native Tongues” collective, had exploded in popularity when their 1990 debut album People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm was certified Gold. Chris’ success with both hip-hop groups caught the eye of Def Jam, the genre’s biggest label at the time, who immediately became interested in bringing Lighty onto their team.³

Def Jam, founded as the “anti-Rapper’s Delight” by NYU student Rick Rubin and Queens promoter Russel Simmons in the former’s dorm room, set out to be the first authentic music label by hip-hop culture for hip-hop culture. In their earliest years, the label released some of the greatest singles and albums of the era, hosting a genre-defining roster featuring LL Cool J, The Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, and Slick Rick. Lyor Cohen, Run-DMC’s former road manager, and Russel Simmons’ right hand man at Def Jam, was the first to take note of Lighty. To impress Chris and lure him over to the label, Lyor set up a meeting between the young manager from the Bronx and Russel Simmons, now hip-hop’s most powerful man. Unfortunately for Lyor, that meeting did not go as planned.³

Russel Simmons was accustomed to taking meetings wherever the executive camped, and Russel frequented clubs far more than the label’s office. On the day of Chris’ scheduled meeting, Russel was set up in a private section at Nel’s, one of New York City’s most exclusive venues. When Chris arrived, he was shocked. Not only could he count all of the black people in the club on one hand, cocaine was everywhere, and bottle girls were parading live snakes around an incredibly high Russel Simmons. Disenchanted by the scene, Chris essentially told the most powerful man in the industry that he was uncomfortable with him and immediately departed the club. Despite the disastrous encounter, Lyor was still determined to add Chris’ talent to the Def Jam team. Cohen continued badgering Lighty and after about a month, Chris acquiesced, recognizing that the best place to learn about the hip-hop industry would be at its number one label, Def Jam.³

Def Jam built their sound around hardcore New York hip-hop: gritty and intense tracks exemplified by LL Cool J’s “I Can’t Live Without My Radio”. However, by the time Lighty arrived in the early 90s, the hip-hop community on the West Coast was growing, and their unique spin on the genre made Def Jam’s projects sound stale in comparison. In fact, Def Jam’s finances were so bad that Russel Simmons and Rick Rubin were at risk of losing the company altogether. Chris Lighty was not only a lifetime fan of hip-hop, but also a lifetime fan of Def Jam, and he was determined to preserve his favorite label. To that end, Chris began searching for an artist that could bring Def Jam a fresh sound and hopefully alleviate the debt that was piling up.⁴

Around the same time, on the opposite coast, a little-known producer named Warren G was honing his signature sound on the floor of his sister’s house. Combining the musical possibilities of his MPC 60 sampler with funk records, he arrived at a unique combination of “chords, strings, [and] melody” that he dubbed “G-Funk”. Warren’s stepbrother, Dr. Dre, had just launched Death Row Records with the infamous Suge Knight. While the pair signed Warren’s childhood friend Snoop Dogg, he was passed over despite production and vocal appearances on two hip-hop classics, Dr. Dre’s 1992 debut The Chronic and Snoop Dogg’s 1993 debut Doggystyle. While disappointed, Warren was undeterred. A chance encounter while hanging out at Death Row with producer Paul Stewart, who was working as music supervisor for John Singleton’s 1993 film “Poetic Justice”, would eventually lead Warren to Chris Lighty.⁴

Since very few white people visited Death Row, Warren assumed Stewart was someone influential and he pulled the movie producer aside to pitch his own music. Stewart was persuaded to listen, and the two popped a cassette of the 1993 song “Indo Smoke” by Mista Grim into a car tape deck. Stewart was blown away by what he heard and began managing Warren G on the spot. Initially, he felt that the young producer from Long Beach would be a behind-the-scenes type guy, helping other artists score big hits. So, Stewart began reaching out to every industry contact in his rolodex until one day, he got a call back from Chris Lighty. Chris loved the tape, but was most interested in the rapper on the third verse, which happened to be Warren G. Instantly, Chris believed that Warren G could be a star in his own right, but also realized it would be a difficult task to lure him from Long Beach to New York City.⁴

In the 90s, coastal allegiances in hip-hop were especially strong. It was almost unheard of for a West Coast artist to sign with an East Coast label, and vice-versa. Warren G’s case was particularly challenging, as he had family ties to the feared powerhouse Death Row Records. In order to woo Warren to Def Jam, Chris took a flight out to Long Beach and treated the artist and his crew to the nicest meals they had ever had. After his wine-and-dine routine, Chris was able to convince Warren to come to New York, where Lighty surprised him with his favorite artist LL Cool J. As a result of Chris’ clever courting, Warren G signed with Def Jam in 1994 and geared up for his debut album.⁴

Warren G enjoyed tremendous success with the label from the very beginning, with his debut single “Regulate” becoming a massive hit and remaining a classic of the genre to this day. After the success of this first record, Chris celebrated with Warren G. Unlike other managers, Chris Lighty was not strictly business with his clients, he was also their friend. This attitude towards his artists made Chris one of the industry’s most beloved managers, and his “midas touch” simply seemed an added bonus. Warren G’s 1994 debut album, Regulate… G Funk Era sold over 3,000,000 copies, bringing in more than enough money to save Def Jam from collapse. Music historian Dan Charnas put it bluntly, “[Def Jam was] $33 Million in debt before Warren G. And then, when Warren G came out, they had a $33 Million surplus. Right, so, good job Chris Lighty.”⁴ On the heels of the breathing room Warren’s debut bought the label, Def Jam experienced its second golden age of talent in the mid-90s, hosting acts like DMX, Method Man, Ludacris, Foxy Brown, and Jay Z to name a few. Chris Lighty’s star rose, too, and he was promoted to Vice President of A&R, cementing himself as a true force in the industry.⁴

In 1999, after nearly a decade with Def Jam, Chris left to pursue a project he had been developing on the side: a hip-hop management agency called Violator, an homage to his old crew. Now focusing his full attention on Violator, the company took off and by the mid-2000s, established itself as one of the industry’s leading agencies. One only had to look at the Violator office for evidence of Chris’ success. Bubba Barker, a Violator intern who eventually became Chris’ assistant, remembers the view like this, “You come in there and these yellow walls, you can’t see the walls because there are so many plaques on the walls.”⁵ Among the Platinum and Gold records displayed were hits from Q-Tip, Busta Rhymes, LL Cool J, Missy Elliot, Capone-N-Noreaga, and many more genre-defining clients represented by Violator. Chris had so much success in part because his approach to his clients was unique. When he managed an artist, it wasn’t just about their marketing, promotions, and contracts. If someone needed to be bailed out of jail, needed a loan, or nearly anything else, Chris would be there. As a result, the artists he managed adored him, and his roots in the Bronx helped his clients feel like he not only understood them, but also truly wanted the best for them.⁵

In 1999, the same year he began building his empire at Violator, the seeds that would grow into some of Chris’ biggest deals were being sown, as a young rapper from Queens was honing his sound in a Jamaica studio. Curtis Jackson lived alone with his mother, a drug dealer, who died under mysterious circumstances when he was a child. By the age of 12, Jackson was dealing drugs himself and nicknamed “Boo-Boo” as nod to his youth. In constant trouble, Jackson eventually ended up behind bars, earning his G.E.D. in 1994, and decided to dedicate himself to rap. After his release, the amateur rapper met Sha Money XL, who became his go-to guy for all things production. Sha was recognized around the city for his talent, and was soon recruited to join the Trackmasters, one of hip-hop’s hottest production teams. Jackson, using the moniker 50 Cent, walked out of a 1999 studio session with his debut “How to Rob”. On the track, the rapper boldly called out popular rappers one-by-one, explaining in grim detail how he would rob them. The disses were incredibly disrespectful and without boundaries, which angered artists enough to retaliate with their own disses against 50 Cent. The popularity of 50’s song combined with the notoriety he gained from his industry-wide beef (a signature 50 Cent marketing technique) made 50 one of the most promising young unsigned artists for hip-hop labels.⁶

In 2000, again, 50 Cent walked out of the studio with a similar — yet far more dangerous — track. The song, called “Ghetto Quran”, name-dropped all of the major drug dealers in Queens, detailing the inner workings of their business. 50 was talking about all sorts of things that were not supposed to be put on vinyl, such as who handled the money, who did the killings, and where bodies were buried. Unlike the rappers 50 had beefed with the previous year, the drug dealers were not preparing diss tracks. On May 24th, 2000, as 50 Cent was entering his friend’s car, a gunman attacked him in an attempted hit, shooting the rapper nine times and leaving him in critical condition. With bullets penetrating his legs, hands, and left cheek, 50 was initially not expected to survive. When he did pull through, doctors were sure that he would never speak or walk again. For a while afterwards, 50 Cent dropped off the map completely, relearning how to walk and talk, and developing a new rap style to fit his changed voice.⁶

After making a full recovery, 50 returned to rap holed up in Sha Money XL’s basement, vowing to make two songs a day for as long as it took to get noticed. When he returned to the booth, 50 Cent’s injuries had changed his vocal tone and slur, resulting in a gritty energy that better fit the type of music he made. While experimenting in Sha’s basement, 50’s label dropped him. His track “Ghetto Quran” and the subsequent hit put out on him made Jackson a pariah in the industry, as labels were afraid that they would be putting themselves at risk by associating with the artist. Despite 50’s reputation, Sha continued to promote 50’s music at industry functions, but was unable to convince anyone to take a chance on signing or promoting his friend. In 2002, Chris Lighty was passed some of 50 Cent’s demos, and was interested enough to meet with him and check out more of his material. As with Warren G in the early-90s, Chris went to meet 50 where he lived, which at the time was Sha’s house. When Chris calmly walked by the scores of goons protecting the house without fear, 50 and Sha were immediately impressed and the relationship between the three began on a high. Equally impressed by what he heard, Chris took a chance and signed 50 Cent to Violator Management. Soon after, he was able to negotiate the rapper a record deal with Shady Aftermath Records, Dr. Dre and Eminem’s label.⁶

With Chris’ help, 50 Cent rose from the industry blacklist to the industry A-list. Still, with a target on his back, one of 50’s first purchases following the record deal was a bulletproof SUV. Chris surmised he was in potential danger as well and began wearing a bulletproof vest to work. Yet, 50 Cent continued to lean into the danger zone with tracks like “Many Men” in the build-up to the release of his debut album, providing Lighty a constant reminder that no matter how promising 50 Cent’s potential, both of their lives were still in danger.⁶

On a cold Thursday night in January 2003, at the end of a regular workday at Violator, a group of gunmen entered the elevator of Lighty’s office in Chelsea. When the doors opened to the Violator office on the 11th floor, the group showered the reception area with bullets and made their escape down the stairs. A month later, six bullets were fired at an SUV outside the Violator office. While the car belonged to Busta Rhymes, it was the same model that Chris drove and a clear indication that his association with 50 was putting his life in danger. Despite this concern, 50 was an excellent client for Chris. 50 Cent was about his business, and Chris knew he could take the artist to new heights. In February 2003, 50 Cent released his debut album Get Rich or Die Trying on Shady Aftermath. Within the first three months, the record was certified 5X-Platinum, selling in excess of 5,000,000 copies. In the time since its release, it has been certified Diamond with over 13,000,000 copies sold. Chris was able to do the impossible: make the industry’s most rejected talent its new most successful artist.⁶

While record sales were booming, Chris began to notice internet streaming significantly decreasing potential profits for artists. After some thoughtful calculations, Chris realized that his artists could make far more money through endorsements and branded content. 50 Cent’s attitude toward business and his newfound popularity made him the perfect guinea pig for Chris’ brand-building experiment. The first deal was a clothing line in collaboration with Marc Ecko. Next came a video game. Eventually, 50 Cent had his own signature sneaker with Reebok that sold better than the shoe worn by the company’s most popular sponsored athlete, Allen Iverson. The branding was a huge success and Chris and 50 were making more money than they could have imagined, with the rapper estimating he made $80 Million from the Reebok deal alone. The two were not content with just shoes and clothes, however, and eventually began to dream much bigger.⁶

One day in 2004, Chris, Sha, and 50 were brainstorming the rapper’s next move. Thinking about products popular among rappers, Chris and Sha suggested vodka and liquor, but 50 rejected those since he didn’t drink. Instead, he suggested working with a product that everybody needs: water. While most managers would laugh at the idea of rapper-branded H2O, Chris loved the idea and started reaching out to water companies. Eventually he found Glaceau, a small operation in Brooklyn, that was just rolling out their new product, Vitamin Water. No one had heard of Vitamin Water yet, and Chris saw it as a perfect opportunity for 50 to endorse a universally appealing product and incorporate his unique personality. Chris eventually brokered a deal for 50 to endorse a single flavor with special significance to him. Chris, Sha, and 50 chose Formula 50, a grape flavor inspired by Kool-Aid and quarter waters, flavored drinks sold at corner stores for a quarter.⁶

The Glaceau contract was not just any ordinary endorsement deal. Foreseeing the tiny company’s potential, Chris negotiated for 50 to be paid in Glaceau equity rather than the traditional one-time endorsement check, an unheard-of move at the time. Three years later, Chris’ forward thinking paid off big time. In 2007, Coca-Cola bought Glaceau for $4 Billion. While it’s not known exactly how much 50 Cent received from the deal, Forbes estimates his Vitamin Water paycheck was worth $100 Million, the largest endorsement deal for an artist at the time and the inspiration for his 2007 single “I Get Money”. For Chris’ effort, he took home $10 Million, the biggest single payout of his career. To say the deal changed the business of celebrity partnerships would be an understatement. When people began hearing about what Chris did for 50, almost every artist in every popular genre began begging their managers to ink them a Vitamin Water-type deal. Chris Lighty had opened the door for rappers like 50 Cent, a former adolescent drug dealer, to sit in boardrooms and talk business with the biggest beverage company in the world. Brands could no longer use hip-hop and R&B artists as cheap promo pieces. Everybody in the industry had seen what Chris brokered and everybody wanted their piece.⁶

Even though Chris had completely altered the promotion payout playbook and made an incredible profit off of the Vitamin Water deal, he had a lot of bills to pay. In addition to supporting his mother, he was paying tuition fees and child support for his seven children from four women. Chris never knew when the next big payday would come; one year could be Vitamin Water and the next year could be nothing.6 Chris’ personal life was in trouble, too. In the early 2000s, Chris met his wife-to-be Veronica. In 2002, the two were married in what was described as the “hip-hop royal marriage”: Lyor Cohen was Chris’ best man, and the crowd was filled with scores of legendary artists and industry titans Chris had befriended over his career. Over the years, however, Chris and Veronica’s relationship deteriorated. Chris would cheat on Veronica and the two frequently argued violently. On August 28th, 2005, police responded to a 911 call at the Lighty residence. When they arrived, they discovered that Chris had split Veronica’s lip open with his fist and left numerous bruises on other parts of her body. Chris was arrested and charged with battery, but Veronica declined to pursue the case. While he may have overcome the odds and had an incredible career managing some of the most important acts in hip-hop history, his personal life unfortunately complicates his industry legacy.⁵

After the Glaceau payout, Chris had difficulty closing the next deal. In addition, he was sued in a dispute with influential Hollywood agent Michael Ovitz. The two had a deal for Ovitz to make Chris’ artists all Hollywood stars, but Chris claimed Ovitz was not delivering on what he promised and pulled out. A nasty legal battle ensued, and in 2007, Chris lost and was ordered to pay $2 Million plus Ovitz’s lawyer fees. Shortly after the decision, Chris finished construction on a new house in Miami and purchased two Chelsea apartments for a total of $5 Million. Just as Chris was hitting his business low, the Great Recession hit, drying up the entire music industry and leaving him with few financial options. Furthermore, Lighty entrusted Bernie Madoff with his savings, which he lost entirely when Madoff’s Ponzi scheme was exposed. Speaking to the media, Chris brushed off the loss as minor, but Chris’ brother, Dave Lighty, recalls him saying that he believed his depleted account with Madoff was at one point worth $23 Million. Now millions of dollars in debt and skipping tax payments, Chris and his family were forced to downsize. By 2011, Chris’ finances were so bad that he was unable to pay child support for two months.⁶

But, the innovative manager was not finished and devised a plan to dig himself out of debt. Back in 2007, Lighty brokered a joint venture between Warner Music and his Violator Management called Brand Asset Group. Its purpose was to help Lighty expand his client roster and business reach. Chris was confident enough in this project to persuade Warner to loan him between $3–6 Million to start the venture. Unfortunately, Brand Asset Group failed to produce the success Chris was banking on, and on August 22nd 2012, when the Warner loan was due, Chris was financially ruined. Eight days later, the brand manager and industry titan was found dead in his home by a single gunshot wound to the head.⁶

While Chris always appeared outwardly self-assured, only a few people were close enough to know about the trouble in his private life. Just a handful were aware that his marriage was falling apart, he was drowning in debt, and there was a warrant out for his arrest as a result of the missed child support. He was struggling emotionally, too. In 2011, under the cover of a heart condition, Chris secretly checked into a psychiatric facility in suburban Connecticut where he was diagnosed with clinical depression. Even his closest friends were unaware of his mental state until after his death. On August 30th, 2012, Chris’ daughter Tiffany moved out of the family home in the Bronx to live with a friend in Toronto. That same day, Veronica kicked Chris out of the house, too. As Veronica’s flight took off from New York City and Violator employees were heading to Chelsea for work, the disturbing news about Chris began to circulate. Bubba Barker, now Chris’ assistant, got a frantic call from Lyor Cohen’s assistant imploring him to check on Lighty at home. All Lyor knew at the time was that Chris had hurt himself, and Bubba was ordered to the Bronx immediately to check on his boss.⁷

When Barker arrived, a crowd of friends and clients surrounded Chris’ house. Darryl Thompson, his best friend from childhood, was one of the few people allowed inside. Together with Chris’ brother Mike, they carried the heavy body bag out the door. Darryl described the scene like this, “Eruption. Busta falls as if his bones are spaghetti… Everybody looking like zombies. Q-Tip, he’s just walking around, hands in his pockets, not saying nothing to nobody. Then he just yells out, ‘This don’t fucking feel right!’”⁷ Havoc, half of the legendary group Mobb Deep and one of Chris’ clients, remembered the day like this, “I just [didn’t] believe it. He was the kind of guy who would talk me out of doing something stupid.”⁸ By the end of the day, Chris’ death had been ruled a suicide and the music industry began to grieve one of its brightest stars.⁷

It is almost impossible to overstate the impact Chris Lighty had on hip-hop music. Chris cut his teeth with The Jungle Brothers and A Tribe Called Quest, two of the genre’s most celebrated groups, at the very moment when hip-hop began to spread beyond New York City. When West Coast hip-hop nearly sunk the fabled Def Jam label, Lighty resurrected it by finding the perfect talent and orchestrating the deal that saved the original hip-hop label from dissolution. When rap went global, so did Chris: his artists toured around the world playing sold out shows in places they could have never dreamed of visiting. Chris went above and beyond for his artists and worked hard so they could get equity. For the first time, Black and Latino artists had the opportunity to sit at the tables where big money was made. In addition to The Jungle Brothers, A Tribe Called Quest, 50 Cent, and Mobb Deep, Lighty’s stable at Violator included Busta Rhymes, P. Diddy, Nas, Ja Rule, Missy Elliot, Mariah Carey, Fat Joe, and Soulja Boy to name a few. Marc Ecko, founder of Complex and a former business partner of Chris and 50 Cent, had the following to say about him, “He had this hunger, this strong brute force in a negotiation. But at the same time he did it with charm. The way he could light up a room was crazy. Watching him do his thing with 50 was just a masterclass in negoatiation.”⁸

Chris Lighty embodied hip-hop. He grew up with it and dedicated his entire self to the success of his clients and the advancement of the genre as a whole. Another close friend, legendary manager Sophia Chang, remembers him like this, “Chris was The Violators. Chris was the South Bronx. Chris was hip-hop in such a profound way and nobody could ever, ever dispute that… ‘Look at the life hip-hop gave me, Soph. I’ve traveled the world, I started an agency, I’ve been in rooms that I never would have dreamed of. I lead conversations with kingmakers and kings.’… I think [hip-hop] gave him everything, and he gave hip-hop everything.”⁷ Rest in peace Chris.

This essay is dedicated to Chris Lighty and Reggie “Combat Jack” Ossé, an incredible music industry talent in his own right, whose research and interviews help keep the legacy of Chris alive. On December 20th, 2017, Reggie Ossé succumbed to colon cancer at the age of 53. Rest in peace Combat Jack.

Sources Cited

1. Ennis, Buck. “40 Under 40: Chris Lighty.” Crain’s New York Business, 2 March 2008. https://www.crainsnewyork.com/awards/chris-lighty. Accessed 24 May 2020.
2. Ossé, Reggie. “Part 1: That Beat, That Beat Right There.” Produced by Gimlet Media. Mogul. 15 June 2017. Podcast, MP3 Audio, 34:24. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/mogul/wbhjzr/part-1-that-beat-that-beat-right-there. Accessed 21 May 2020.
3. Ossé, Reggie. “Part 2: Not Just Me and Snakes.” Produced by Gimlet Media. Mogul. 23 June 2017. Podcast, MP3 Audio, 29:50 .https://gimletmedia.com/shows/mogul/rnhobb/part-2-not-just-me-and-snakes. Accessed 21 May 2020.
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6. Ossé, Reggie. “Part 5: How Heavy It Was.” Produced by Gimlet Media. Mogul. 21 July 2017. Podcast, MP3 Audio, 35:33. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/mogul/j4hlnb/part-5-how-heavy-it-was. Accessed 23 May 2020.
7. Ossé, Reggie. “Part 6: August 30, 2012.” Produced by Gimlet Media. Mogul. 28 July 2017. Podcast, MP3 Audio, 38:12. https://gimletmedia.com/shows/mogul/brho9v/part-6-august-30-2012. Accessed 23 May 2020.
8. Kenner, Rob. “Remembering Chris Lighty.” Complex, 30 August 2012. https://www.complex.com/music/2012/08/remembering-chris-lighty. Accessed 24 May 2020.
9. Smith, Danyel. “Remembering Chris Lighty, Hip-Hop Leader and My Friend.” WBUR News, 31 August 2012. https://www.wbur.org/npr/160357103/remembering-chris-lighty-hip-hop-leader-and-my-friend. Accessed 25 May 2020.